Nizamuddin Dargah
Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya
The shrine of a Chishti saint at the centre of a living quarter — and of Delhi's qawwali.
Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya died in 1325 having outlasted seven sultans and refused all of them. His shrine, rebuilt and embellished many times since, sits at the end of a lane so narrow and so crowded with flower sellers, kebab shops and shoe stands that you arrive at the marble courtyard without warning. Around it lies an entire necropolis of people who wanted to be buried near him — among them the poet Amir Khusrau and the Mughal princess Jahanara.
The dargah's other inheritance is musical. Qawwali as it is sung in India owes its form to Khusrau, and on Thursday evenings the courtyard fills for a performance that is devotional rather than staged — no ticketing, no seating plan, just an increasingly tight crowd and a harmonium. The Chishti insistence that the door stands open to everyone is still, visibly, the rule of the place.
- 01Amir Khusrau's tombThe poet and musician lies a few metres from his teacher, as he asked.
- 02Thursday qawwaliSung after evening prayer in the courtyard — arrive early and sit where you are told.
- 03The baoliA stepwell dug in the saint's lifetime, still fed by groundwater and still in use.
Approach on foot; vehicles cannot enter the lanes. Shoes off at the entrance, heads covered, and photography restricted inside the shrine.